To Abhor or Not To Abhor? Charles Hodge Weighs In - Part 2

This post is part 2 dealing with the 3rd membership vow of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and whether it is an accurate description of the Christian's confession of faith, specifically focusing on the vow's teaching of self-abhorrence. Part 1 is found here >>> To Abhor or Not To Abhor? That Is The Question.

Prior to the 20th century, the Romans 7 passage below was widely understood among Reformed theologians to be speaking of the normal Christian experience (see Rev. Kim Riddlebarger’s article “Romans 7 and the Normal Christian Life”):

Rom. 7: 21-8:1 - So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

From the Orthodox Presbyterian Church Book of Church Order, Membership vow #3:

Do you confess that because of your sinfulness you abhor and humble yourself before God, that you repent of your sin, and that you trust for salvation not in yourself but in Jesus Christ alone?

The meaning in both Paul’s words and those of the vow echo one another. They express the normal experience of Christians who, though redeemed, yet remain real sinners who increasingly comprehend the reality of their sinfulness (the flesh) in light of an increasing apprehension of God’s holiness. As the Christian grows in Christ, he is convinced more and more that there is no other remedy for comfort and refuge from his sinfulness but to flee by faith to Christ alone for his salvation.

There is a long and rich Reformed testimony to the doctrine found in the OPC 3rd membership vow stretching from the earliest days of the Reformation to our time. Here is one:

Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology - 1871: 

Chapter VIII - Sin, Section 13. Original Sin, Second Argument from the Entire Sinfulness of Men, 5. Argument From the Experience of God's People. 

"In the New Testament the sacred writers evince the same deep sense of their own sinfulness, and strong conviction of the sinfulness of the race to which they belong. Paul speaks of himself as the chief of sinners. He complains that he was carnal, sold under sin. He groans under the burden of an evil nature, saying, O, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? From the days of the Apostles to the present time, there has been no diversity as to this point in the experience of Christians. There is no disposition ever evinced by them to palliate or excuse their sinfulness before God. They uniformly and everywhere, and just in proportion to their holiness, humble themselves under a sense of their guilt and pollution, and abhor themselves repenting in dust and ashes. This is not an irrational, nor is it an exaggerated experience. It is the natural effect of the apprehension of the truth; of even a partial discernment of the holiness of God, of the spirituality of the law, and of the want of conformity to that divine standard. There is always connected with this experience of sin, the conviction that our sense of its evil and its power over us, and consequently of our guilt and pollution, is altogether inadequate. It is always a part of the believer's burden, that he feels less than his reason and conscience enlightened by the Scriptures, teach him he ought to feel of his moral corruption and degradation."